Joe Cimino, the New Democrat MPP for Sudbury, says he will resign from his position at the end of Thursday.

In a statement, Cimino said he made the decision after much reflection and thought.

"I have been asked several times in the past how I was able to balance my public obligations as a city councillor with my family life," he said in a Thursday press release.

"Even though it was difficult to do, I was able to be there for my young children, wife and extended family while still serving my community with complete dedication. Unfortunately the pendulum has swung too far to one side in the last several months. Simply, for my personal health wellness, and more importantly the well being of my family I must resign my seat in the Provincial Legislature."

Cimino was elected as the Provincial Member of Parliament in the June 12 election.

Actually, terrytowel is right that it does have some similiarites. In both cases a new member decided that elected office wasn't right for him because it was conflicting with other areas of his family life & personal health. In this case the member in question has not left quite as soon, but it's still somewhat of a similiar situation.

The NDP only narrowly won Sudbury in June, despite the fact that the Liberals had no incumbent after Bartolucci retired. The Liberal candidate (a quadrapalegic, btw) did extremely well and only lost by about 1 or 2 points. Could be the opportunity for the Wynne Liberals to take it back.

Supposedly Doug Ford sees himself as someone who can appeal to blue collar union members - now is his chance!! Let him run for the PCs in Sudbury and show his stuff. If he cant win Sudbury - where can he ever win???

Let's remember, though, that Cimino's nomination battle and victory was fraught with controversy--in a way, Paul Loewenberg might have fared better (and still could), at least in part on Vanthof-ian "victor-in-waiting" grounds.

Being an MPP is a tough life and in some ways it is almost harder to admit it and call it quits than it is to struggle on. Too often parties underappreciate this aspect during the vetting process.

With nothing really hanging in the balance, this is a great opportunity for the Liberals to squeak this one out. Olivier has announced that he'll run for the nomination. They definitely have a good chance with a strong argument for elecitng someone within government (as much as I hate that undeocratic argument.) Personally, I'd say they are favourites.

With nothing really hanging in the balance, this is a great opportunity for the Liberals to squeak this one out. Olivier has announced that he'll run for the nomination. They definitely have a good chance with a strong argument for elecitng someone within government (as much as I hate that undeocratic argument.) Personally, I'd say they are favourites.

I don't know how well Oliver is received in the riding, but my impression is that the Liberals held on in 2011 mainly because of the popularity of Bartolucci, and this was during an election when the Liberals were sinking in the polls and lost seats overall. 2014 was a much better election for the Liberals, and yet Sudbury still fell to the NDP. Remember that the Liberals don't have the advantage of incumbency, and there's already a strong enough NDP base there that the party could realistically hold the seat.

Aristotle, as I said above, the Liberals didn't have an incumbent in Sudbury this year, and yet they only lost the riding by about 1 point.

As I also said, the Liberal candidate was a quadrapalegic and had some challenges against him, and yet he still nearly won the seat under difficult circumstances.

The NDP had the advantage of holding the riding provincially, and also being able to target a lot of resources there. Horwath only had a small number of target seats so she could afford to spend a lot of time there. Wynne had to be in more places in the province and couldn't be there as often.

Considering that many people predicted the NDP would mop the floor with the Liberals in Sudbury, I'd say the OLP surpassed expecations by coming so close to retaining the seat.

I have no idea who will win the by-election, nor will I be involved in the campaign since I have plenty to do federally for Justin Trudeau right now, but it could be another close race. As someone said above, voters might want to vote for a government MPP now that they know Wynne is Premier (that wasn't a certainty when people voted on Election Day in June).

As I also said, the Liberal candidate was a quadrapalegic and had some challenges against him, and yet he still nearly won the seat under difficult circumstances.

If the challenges/difficult circumstances relate to his being a quadrapalegic, it smells a little patronizing. (Didn't hurt Steven Fletcher or Sam Sullivan BTW.)

Besides, as aforementioned, it may well have been internal NDP candidacy issues that narrowed Cimino's margin from what some were expecting--the "difficult circumstances" weren't just in the Liberal camp. And to reiterate: a Loewenberg byelection candidacy might make all the difference re whether the Grits are obvious favourites here or not.

(Trivia of trivial significance: the last time the ONDP lost a seat through byelection was when Gerard Kennedy beat David Miller to replace Bob Rae in York South in 1996.)

Just months after the 2011 election the Liberals triggered a $500,000 byelection in Kitchener-Waterloo AND gave Elizabeth Witmer a lifelong $200,000/year job at WSIB all in a desperate attempt to pick up a seat in a byelection...maybe the Liberals should pay back that money - plus the $500,000 per seat price for mid-term resignations by Best, McGuinty, Broten, and the members from London West and Niagara Falls!

I don't understand the big deal around severances .... Isn't being defeated the political equivalent of being fired? And I like to think that most collective agreements have provisions for pension plans with contributions from employers.

"Unlike in federal politics – where MPs and senators earn a lifetime pension – Ontario MPPs get severance based on the number of years served in office and average annual remuneration. An MPP that has served four years or less at Queen's Park receives a severance equal to six months of his or her average salary; a member serving more than four years but less than eight years earns one year's salary; and any MPP with more than eight years in office gets a severance equal to eighteen months pay."

And the comparison clearly shows that Federal MPs (with pensions) do much better than MPPs (with severance payments). Short-term MPPs benefit from the severance arrangement; but medium to long-term MPPs lose out, compared to a pension model.

Thanks for that, sherpa-finn. I didn't realize that the Ontario MPP severance is in lieu of a contributory pension. Makes more sense now (not commenting on the quantum - just the concept), though defined-benefit pensions are of course a better approach for everyone. Especially CPP/QPP (once appropriately enhanced!).

Does every thread have to devolve into this type of thing? As Unionist said on a thread in the Canadian Politics forum, all it does is turn every topic into a Liberals vs. NDP slug-fest.

Why not just stay on topic, rather than taking a personal shot at the Liberals?

I could bring up that unlike Tom Mulcair, Justin Trudeau gave up his seat at the funeral service in Lac Mégantic to a member of the town and stood outside whereas Mulcair kept his seat inside and made no such gesture.

Or that Justin Trudeau gave up his seat at Nelson Mandela's funeral and gave it to Irwin Cotler instead.

Crisis for the Ontario Liberals - the disabled activist who ran for them in June and came close has gone public that he was forced to withdraw so that Wynne could name a candidate and he was also offered a government job if he would shut up about it. He has gone public about being shunted aside to way for Toronto's choice

Sudbury is just about the last place in Ontario where the Green party would make any impact. This is a place where the local economy revolves around mining and forestry and where people like to shoot things.

Sudbury is just about the last place in Ontario where the Green party would make any impact. This is a place where the local economy revolves around mining and forestry and where people like to shoot things.

“On Friday, the head of the Ontario Liberal Party campaign, Pat Sorbara, called me to reiterate suggestions of a job or appointment. I told Pat I had a job and that I wanted to seek the nomination to be Sudbury’s MPP,” he said.

“At that point, I was informed that if I sought the nomination, the premier was prepared to bypass the nomination process and appoint their chosen candidate.”

In a brief statement, Sorbara said: “any suggestion that anything was offered in exchange for any action is categorically false.”

Wynne insisted “there was no specific promise” to Olivier, though she didn’t dispute the party would appoint a candidate instead of holding an open nomination.

“There was a discussion with Andrew Olivier,” said the premier, who repeatedly refused to say why he no longer makes the cut.

“I have had a couple of conversations with him. What we were trying to do was pay Andrew the respect of giving him an opportunity to know there was another candidate.”

Wonder what the heck happened there! That's a pretty extreme move, I could understand if he had an issue with Mulcair to run for the ONDP but to jump ship.Its a risky move, Glen now has to run under all the OLP baggage and recent bad news around their messes and the whole nomination issue (offering the former candidate "something" to not contest) AND he will face the same ire and hate that Hyer is facing for jumping ship. Big grab for the OLP but I don't know if that will work, the NDP needs a pretty strong candidate now provincially and for the Federal election/by-election

It is obvious why Glen Thibeault has defected to the Ont Libs. He wants a cabinet post and actually institute policy in government. Rather than bang your head against the wall in opposition.

If he gets defeated provincially, will he run for the Libs federally?

Agreed that he wants a Cabinet post although any one who understands how politics works knows that a Cabinet minister's influence on policy - particularly in this day and age - is minimal.

He'll know this. The benefit for him isn't influence on policy - that's decided centrally - but the ability to make "positive" announcements and hand over cheques which most of the opposition MPPs don't get to do. More often than not, being an opposition MP or MPP is particularly negative and sometimes a thankless "Dr. No" type job locally.

I think a lot of Thiebault's switch has to do with the new influx of NDP MPs which has left some formerly big fish unexpectedly simming in a much larger pond, as well as Wynne's NDP-in-a-Liberal-package narrative which is very appealing to many many NDPers.

There might be something afoot locally, too. This is a very big deal to the Sudbury NDP which were built the right way through local groundwork, with Thiebault being their big success and Loewenberg was supposed to be next.

After the Cimino issue, one has to wonder if Thiebault is moving over with any of the local organization with him. Although these type of appointments never work well (haven't the Liberals learned this yet?) this does make it difficult for Loewenberg to run against his former buddy.

But first and foremost, this is the NDP's fault for poorly vetting Cimino.

It is obvious why Glen Thibeault has defected to the Ont Libs. He wants a cabinet post and actually institute policy in government. Rather than bang your head against the wall in opposition.

If he gets defeated provincially, will he run for the Libs federally?

If helping implement reactionary policies is your cup of tea, I guess that is possible.

I think a lot of factors may be involved, Mulcair raising the long gun registry issue, apparently out of the blue, the Cimino nomination, and the sidelining of Lowenberg, Andrea's less than stellar performance.

Still, this reeks of top-level Liberal cherry picking undermining the local nomination process. I think there's more to this story and there is still a lot of time for the media to probe the Grit machine for this shady selection process.

If helping implement reactionary policies is your cup of tea, I guess that is possible.

Glenn writes "The issues the Premier is championing – retirement security, investment in the Ring of Fire, better health care – are the same issues I care deeply about and areas where the people of Sudbury rightly expect to see real progress."

“I am saddened and disappointed to lose a respected friend and colleague. I understand the allure of power for some, but don’t really understand his choice since Ms. Wynne’s Liberals have proven time and again they are not a progressive government. The real progressives in Ontario are Andrea Horwath’s New Democrats. People are cynical about these kinds of actions; but regardless of Mr. Thibeault’s decision, we in the NDP remain focused on holding Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to account. We will continue to propose the practical ideas that help Canadian families with their important priorities like childcare and health care.”

If helping implement reactionary policies is your cup of tea, I guess that is possible.

Glenn writes "The issues the Premier is championing – retirement security, investment in the Ring of Fire, better health care – are the same issues I care deeply about and areas where the people of Sudbury rightly expect to see real progress."

Anyone can say "better health care", but if you are axing revenue streams while saying so, you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. As likely as not "investment" in the "Ring of Fire" will come at the expense of provincial revenue generating assets sold, so a net loss for the provincial government.

Right now, if you have 2 billion dollars Terry, I suggest you make a bid on Hydro One distribution, because at $311 Million a year in profit, you are looking at returning that in six years, and making a billion on top in ten years.

The Liberals aren't saying where the loss in revenue will be made up into the future, but they are selling your future, for cash on the barrel.

They are doing the job that Mike Harris couldn't. And Wynne is going down in history, not as the "Social Justice Premier", but as the "Queen of Privatization", now rolling out Tim Hudak's Million Jobs Plan, as we speak.